ANNAS

ANNAS

In a short time the criminal was taken to the house which Annas shared with his son-in-law, the High Priest Caiaphas. (John 18:13) Although the night was now well advanced, and although the assembly had been warned the day before, that Caiaphas hoped to capture the blasphemer early in the morning, many of the Jews were still in bed and the prosecution could not begin at once. In order that the common people might not have time to rise in rebellion, nor Pilate to take thought, the leaders were in haste to finish the affair that very morning. Some of the guards who returned from the Mount of Olives were sent to awake the more important Scribes and Elders, and in the meantime old Annas, who had not slept all that night, set himself on his own account to question this false Prophet.

Annas, son of Seth, had been for seven years High Priest, and though deposed in the year 14 under Tiberius, he was still the real primate of the Jewish Church. A Sadducee, head of one of the most aggressive and wealthy families of the ecclesiastical patriarchate, he was still, through his son-in-law, leader of his caste. Five of his sons were afterwards High Priests, and one of them, also called Annas, caused James, the brother of the Lord, to be stoned to death.

Jesus was led before him. It was the first time that the wood-worker of Nazareth found Himself face to face with the religious head of His people, with His greatest enemy. Up to that time He had met only the subalterns in the Temple, the common soldiers, the Scribes and Pharisees; now He was before the head, and He was no longer the accuser but the accused. This was the first questioning of that day. In the space of a few hours, four authorities examined Him; two rulers from the Temple, Annas and Caiaphas; and two tem­poral rulers, Antipas and Pilate.

The first question Annas put to Jesus was to ask Him who His disciples were. The old political priest who like all the other Sadducees gave no credence to the foolish stories about the coming of a Messiah, wished to know first of all who were the followers of the new Prophet, and from what rank of society He had picked them up, so that he might determine how far the seditious ulcer had progressed. But Jesus looked at Him without answering. How could that dove-huckster have thought that Jesus could betray those who had betrayed Him?

Then Annas asked about His doctrine. Jesus answered that it was not for Him to explain: "I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said." (John 18:20-21)

This was the truth. Jesus was not esoteric. Even if He sometimes said to His Disciples words that He did not repeat in the open places of the city, He exhorted them to cry out on the housetops what He told them in the house. But Annas must have made a wry face at an answer which pre-supposed an honest trial, for one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, "Answerest thou the high priest so?" (Vs. 22)

This blow from the quick-tempered attendant was the be­ginning of the insults which were henceforth rained upon Christ up to the cross. But He who had been struck, with His cheek reddened by the loudmouth fool, turned towards the man who had struck Him, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?" (Vs. 23)

The rogue, abashed by such calm, found no answer. Annas began to see that this Galilean was no common adventurer, and he was all the more eager to get Him out of the way. Seeing, however, that he was not succeeding in extracting any­thing from Him, he sent Him bound to Caiaphas, the High Priest, so that the fiction of a legal prosecution might begin at once. (Vs. 24)